Sherlock didn't die at Reichenbach Falls. Conan Doyle intended he should because he was tired of writing about him, but after Sherlock Holmes fans revolted and refused to accept that there weren't going to be any more Holmes stories, it turned out that Sherlock had just taken advantage of the circumstances and disappeared for awhile.

The other thought that occurs to me is, every franchise has its Trekkies.posted by orange swan at 3:59 PM on November 29, 2012

Sherlock didn't die at Reichenbach Falls.

"He may not have died, but he was never the same man afterwards", as the this-new-season-sucks crowd of the 1900s liked to say. I've always been delighted by how much of modern fan culture traces back through Sherlockians - fan societies; fic; kidding-but-serious scholarly essays; 'fanon' that all True Devotees know but doesn't appear anywhere in the actual text; slash... all there and correct before television even existed, and still puttering along in the present day.

(As for Trekkies, President Obama may know the Vulcan salute, but, well... top this.)

I'm going to guess the author's inexplicable Japanese "baritsu assistants" are actually associated with the Baritsu Society, the Tokyo branch of the official Holmes fan club (single-link languagehat). posted by ormondsacker at 5:35 PM on November 29, 2012 [5 favorites]

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